Presented in a fine oversized edition with an elegantly simple format, this entertaining survey of heroic exploration from the author of the four-volume Encyclopedia of Exploration profiles more than 150 of history's most important and unusual journeys of discovery in pithy, one-page entries. Ray Howgego takes us from ancient Egypt, where a nobleman named Harkhuf made four journeys into unknown territories of the Nile nearly 4300 years ago, to the first transpolar crossing of the Arctic by dogsled, proposed in 1909 by Alfred Harrison but not realized until Wally Herbert struck out across the ice in 1968. Each story is illustrated with a full-page reproduction of an expedition map, an artistic depiction, or an archival photo, while several two-page images (larger than 19 x 11 inches) capture the adventure of exploration.